Imagine creating a safe that is tamper-proof… but you can’t keep money in it. Or designing a book that doesn’t burn or age, but you can only write one word in it. That’s basically what German firm Machdyne has created with its Blaustahl flash drive: a device that seems useless.
According to its designers, it is capable of lasting about 95 years if the ambient temperature is 55º C and up to 2 centuries if we talk about 35ºC. It does not specify what happens if we store it in a place at 10 °C, for example.
Ell Blaustahl achieves this thanks to a ferroelectric random access memory (FeRAM, for iron and RAM), which allows him to Keep your files safe up to ten times longer than conventional external memory, such as USB or SSD cards.
In exchange for this, their ability to Storing large amounts of data is reduced to a minimum… to a bare minimum. The company talks about 8 KB, which is equivalent to just over five pages of unformatted text or a good quality emoji. And that’s it.
The logical question is… Why would anyone want to spend almost 30 euros to preserve 200 years, A poor quality photo or half a chapter of a book? Unexpectedly, the cases pointed out by those responsible for the device are many. For example, using it as a time capsule, to leave a message for the grandchildren of our grandchildren of our…
EITHER Store passwords securely, for example those linked to cryptocurrencies. It can also be used as a clue in a gymkhana treasure hunt.
Memory can be erase and rewrite a billion times and does not need to be connected to a power source to be read nor does it require external software or hardware to download the information.
Does that make sense? It’s probably a prototype that in a few years can be scaled up and have much larger memory without losing performance or durability. Right now, However, it is a very specific curiosity.